Another season of Pellet Horror in Kashmir Valley

In the midst of spring, Kashmir is dealing with another season of pellet horror. Introduced in the armory of security forces, dealing with the law and order situation, with an objective to minimise civilian fatalities, the pellets guns have achieved the opposite.
Going by the injuries by pellets, they are almost as dangerous as bullets. The pellet-related injuries are proving to be devastating for the victims.
“A person blinded by the pellets loses all his independence. He has to be dependent on others all his life,” Amir Kabir Beigh, 25, told Kashmir Post. Beigh is one of the first victims, who received pellet injuries in both the eyes on October 12, 2010, outside the old district hospital in Baramulla.
Since the protests broke out following the encounters in south Kashmir on Sunday, in which 20 persons, including 13 militants, three soldiers and four civilians, were killed, besides injuries to more than 200 people, doctors at Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital in Srinagar has performed eye surgery on around 40 victims with pellet injuries. These fresh injuries have flashed back the images of the 2016 summer unrest, in which over 9,000 pellet-hit victims were brought to the Srinagar hospital.
“Eye is a delicate structure. A person suffering an eye injury has a threat of losing the vision partially or totally,” said a senior doctor.
“Under the Criminal Procedure Code, a security person needs permission of a magistrate to fire a bullet whereas no such permission is required to fire a pellet gun since it falls under the “non-lethal” category. This makes the use of weapon reckless,” said a lawyer, having been part of a petition before the Supreme Court seeking ban on pellet gun use in Kashmir.